Dell XPS 12 Review: A Jack of All Trades Flipscreen Ultrabook
by Jarred Walton on February 22, 2013 2:13 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
- Dell
- XPS
- Intel Insider
- Ultraportable
- hybrids
- Ultrabook
Dell XPS 12 Laptop Performance Summary
We’re taking the same approach to benchmarks that we used with the Acer S7 and Surface Pro reviews—which is to say, we’ll use all of our typical laptop benchmarks along with some of the tablet-centric benchmarks to round things out. Performance as you’d expect is basically on par with other Core i7 ULV offerings (e.g. Acer S7), so faster than the Surface Pro, substantially faster than any non-Core products, but worse battery life than ARM offerings. Given the size and weight, this is much more a part of the laptop with a touchscreen crowd as opposed to being a tablet with laptop aspects, so our primary focus will be on how it compares with other laptops. Here’s the quick overview of the base components for the various laptops we’re including. Note that at present, only the XPS 12, Acer S7, Surface Pro, and Vizio CT15 were tested with Windows 8; the rest were running Windows 7.
| Laptop Configuration Overview | ||||
| Laptop | CPU | Graphics | Storage | Battery |
| Acer Aspire S7-391-9886 | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 2x128GB SSD | 35Wh |
| Apple MacBook Air 13 (Mid-2012) | Intel i5-3427U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 50Wh |
| ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A-DB71 | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 50Wh |
| Dell XPS 12 | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 47Wh |
| Dell XPS 13 | Intel i7-2637M | HD3000 | 256GB SSD | 47Wh |
| HP Envy 14 Spectre | Intel i7-3667U | HD4000 | 2x128GB SSDs | 56Wh |
| HP Folio 13 | Intel i5-2467M | HD3000 | 128GB SSD | 60Wh |
| Intel IVB Ultrabook Prototype | Intel i5-3427U | HD4000 | 240GB SSD | 47Wh |
| Microsoft Surface Pro | Intel i5-3317U | HD4000 | 128GB | 42Wh |
| Toshiba Satellite U845-S406 | Intel i5-3317U | HD4000 | 500+32GB Hybrid | 54Wh |
| Toshiba Satellite U845W-S410 | Intel i5-3317U | HD4000 | 500+32GB Hybrid | 54Wh |
| VizioCT15 | Intel i7-3517U | HD4000 | 256GB SSD | 52Wh |
There aren’t really any surprises here; the XPS 12 performs right about where we’d expect. Acer’s S7 does come in slightly ahead in most benchmarks, which is interesting considering it’s thinner and thus cooling the chip (and enabling higher Turbo Boost clocks) should in theory be more difficult, but clearly that’s not the case. Whether it’s a lack of fine tuning for performance, minor differences in other components, or prioritizing quiet over fast, unless you’re really concerned about a difference of a few percent all of the i7-3517U Ultrabooks perform about the same. Actually, that’s not quite true, as Windows 7 models seem to hold a slight performance advantage in several tests as well (particularly battery life, which we’ll get to in a moment).
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Kristian Vättö - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Out of interest, what's the SSD inside your review unit?JarredWalton - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
256GB Micron C400 mSATA -- table on the first page. :-ptrekker99 - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Really? I have a XPS 12 and it has a Samsung PM830 in it.JarredWalton - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Not too surprising -- Dell and other large OEMs usually like to have more than one supplier.Sazar - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Mine also has a Samsung PM830, but as others have pointed out, they do have sort of a part's bin. I believe all of the drives have similar performance though.Death666Angel - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Happens on many SSD equipped systems.I have an Ativ PC Pro with a PM830 while others (review systems and retail) have Sandisk U100. :)
uditrana - Friday, June 7, 2013 - link
Mine also Has a Samsung PM830. I wonder if it region based or pre-production/final production makes a difference.Rick83 - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
I don't see the point of the 12 inch touch screen, if it doesn't also feature a decent digitizer for pen input.With pen input, I could have recommended this device to anyone who needs a medium sized sketch pad on the go, but like this it's just a small laptop with a useless gimmick.
nerd1 - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
With proper digitizer this would make a good note taking tool.piroroadkill - Friday, February 22, 2013 - link
Couldn't have said it better.If I'm to get a machine with a large touchscreen, that's portable, it needs to have an active digitizer and a good pen, and a slot for that pen.
Otherwise, why would I buy it? It doesn't have a good graphics card (so bored of this trend of thin machines with onboard graphics, my goddamn Sony Vaio Z12 is 9.7mm thicker than this thing, yet has discrete graphics, and indeed a DVD writer, is actually smaller in X and Y dimensions yet has a larger screen, faster CPU, larger battery.. Come back when you can compete with that.)